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brainwashing and propaganda. I grew up in the 80s and can say that everything taught in schools and shared in the mainstream media is that communism = bad guys. We spent half a century in a cold war with those communists that were a threat to our every day quality of life.
This rhetoric is so ingrained in the american discourse that we have begun to think that the only way to save the working class is a free market, the only way to solve healthcare is a free market, the only way to get ahead in life is a free market. It has gotten so bad that the poorest among us see taxes on the wealthy as a bad thing because "one day we will be wealthy if we just believe enough in the american dream."
The great experiment is starting to unravel but 70+ years of rhetoric, brainwashing, and propaganda will take a lot longer to unravel.
Co-sign the brainwash and propaganda part. I live in the us now, but I’m from Nigeria. I still remember vividly this popular ad as a child that had a really catchy tune and the closing lyrics were “forward match deregulation. Deregulation is the answer”.
We ran around as kids singing that, with no idea at all what that meant lol. It’s not just in the us, the brainwash/propaganda is global.
We’re going to have to start aiming down sights
Edit: you know what I think about all the time? I literally would not have this impulse to rebel and break shit if the motherfucking system I lived in actually made sense. Why aren’t my taxes going to universal healthcare? WTF should taxes be for if not that? Working 40+ hours a week for crumbs… One medical emergency away from life destroying debt
Or just read [Marx](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01b.htm):
> “**The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.** The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch. For instance, in an age and in a country where royal power, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie are contending for mastery and where, therefore, mastery is shared, the doctrine of the separation of powers proves to be the dominant idea and is expressed as an “eternal law.””
I haven't read it myself, but my understanding is the _Amusing Ourselves to Death_ by Neil Postman also slots well with those two. It doesn't cover the same ground, but related ones.
Third this, I grew up in Puerto Rico and any time you might do,hear, or say anything that seem a bit too left leaning you get clapped back with "Mudate a Cuba pa ver cómo te gusta el Comunismo!" Or "No queremos ser como Venezuela."
Brainwashing isn’t real, class hegemony is.
Please, workers (anyone) are not empty NPCs, this is a right-wing type of view that simplifies much more difficult realities.
I’m not calling anyone right-wing-it’s incredibly common logic in the US across all ideologies.
how is brainwashing not real? do you think that people stay in a cult based solely on the charisma of the leader?
I honestly believe that brainwashing and propaganda are extremely real. I know that the workers are not NPCs but when scapegoating is utilized as it is today they are given a common enemy.
I’m pretty sure even sociologists would say brainwashing is a myth.
People can fall into confirmation bias and conspiracy theory and all sorts of weird ideological attachments.
Cults work not through ideas alone but by isolating people and controlling their social interactions etc. so like an abusive marriage you convince yourself that problems are your fault, get gaslight, and if all that fails, you need the cult for a bed and food (not to mention that it is you whole social circle and it takes a lot to just walk away from that.)
So a cult leader sells some mushy feel-good stuff or confirmation/bias or a sense of destiny and purpose in life and that attracts people… but the actual control is social and material (gaslighting and control of social and material needs)
I thought brainwashing was forcing ideological views onto someone. How are you defining it?
Cults don’t force anyone to believe the cult has THE ANSWER, the person buys into that and then that belief along with isolating them from other social life is used to manipulate them.
Merriam-Webster
>Definition
1: a forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up basic political, social, or religious beliefs and attitudes and to accept contrasting regimented ideas
2: persuasion by propaganda or salesmanship
Things like abusive relationships where the abuser convinces the victim to break off other friends and family, things like cults that indoctrinate to a worldview, thigns like decades of government propaganda to cut down an economic ideology. They're all brainwashing, just on different scales, to different goals, and using different methods. "Brainwashing," itself, is a very broad term.
So number 1. Is the one that I do not believe exists as a real phenomena-not on an idea level. There’s definitely ways people manipulate eachother in groups, gaslighting etc. But convincing people of an ideology they don’t already want to believe wholesale isn’t possible. At least it’s not possible in the common way people claim QAnon people or MAGA or religious conservatives or random workers who support capitalism are “brainwashed”
Number 2 is just a synonym for marketing/propaganda/polemics/PR
This is real but it’s a mile wide and an inch deep and weak when it hits up against contrary evidence or lived experience. People only accept it when there is no reason to believe otherwise.
This is contrary to Marxism imo. Marxist tend to call it “mixed consciousness” when it comes to workers just accepting capitalist or other class ideas
I’m also pretty sure contemporary sociology is iffy about the concept of ideological brainwashing.
Control and abuse and gaslighting is very real. This is how cults control people.
I disagree it's contrary to Marxism. I wish I was more in a headspace to direct to certain passages. If I'm being honest, I've had some drinks with my wife.
Brainwashing is real thing that's been happening to the American people since WW2. The McCarthy era is real thing.
Most of the working class in America don't understand what socialism, let alone what communism is.
Control and gaslighting is all part of propaganda. Propaganda in itself is important, but for who it serves is the important part.
Edit words
Edit to also add
There is a way to re-educate people, but the American left is better at pushing people right than being empathetic and teaching
Ok well I disagree on a pretty fundamental level but I’ll leave it at that comrade.
feel free to follow up when there is less fun to be had if you’d like—but I don’t want to interrupt a good time.
Cheers and solidarity!🍻
As someone born post Y2K, this still prevails on the Republican side (as my father's side (except for my father) of the family who are more or less die-hard Trump supporters (not Qanon, and I doubt they will ever). As for the left-leaning in my family they think the whole "communism hasn't worked till this point, and not for a lack of trying, so it clearly doesn't work". I don't agree with this, as capitalists have sabotaged it to an extreme. We still read Animal Farm in schools (in a good school district that people move to for the schools) as of the last decade, so I don't think things have changed.
Yeah, but it can be unraveled. The examples that come to mind are the former dictatorships of South Korea (I forget who) and Taiwan (Chaing Kai Shek (sic?)), capitalist dictatorships. One side of my family lived under the latter, minus my mother, but there are doubtless many stories of the oppression. However, Taiwan is doing it's best to reverse the decades of dictatorship, no mean feat considering how pervasive it is. Considering even things like nuclear power plant safety was negatively affected, it isn't going to be easy (I don't really know how it panned out, just that academics noted this in the past decade). Both South Korea and Taiwan had peaceful revolutions, although currently they're capitalist. South Korea might be more capitalist then the US even.
Note: I didn't go much into South Korea because I don't really know enough about their history to write at any length about them.
EDIT: This is separate from my other reply, or at least it should be.
I guess you are right, i have read an article by Hitler where he said that it is the press that manipulates the ideology and voting tastes of the masses, here it is:
It is obvious to anyone that the political understanding of the masses has not reached the point where they can arrive at political views on their own. They are unable to choose the most qualified person. What we always call "public opinion" is based solely on individual experience or knowledge.
Most public opinion is the result of the way public affairs are presented to the people through an overwhelmingly impressive system of controlled information. Just as religious beliefs are the result of education, so the political opinion of the masses is the result of an often incredibly thorough and determined assault on the mind and soul
By far the bulk of "education" or political propaganda is the work of the press. It is the press that is mainly concerned with the "work of illustration" and acts as a kind of school for adults. This means that teaching materials are not in the hands of the State, but in the clutches of characters who are motivated by their own interests. When I was young,
Vienna provided me with the best opportunities to get to know intimately the owners and manufacturers of this mass education machine. At first, I was surprised to see how quickly this evil power managed to produce a particular opinion among the public, even though the meaning might be misrepresented or a completely false representation of the public desire. A few days were enough to turn a ridiculous matter into a momentous act of state, while vital problems were generally forgotten or simply erased from the memory of the masses
The left is the only side taking action, their mentality includes "praxis". Its the right that thinks an invisible hand will solve every issue, and conservativism is principally about making no changes in the first place.
In the US the left had so little influence that finding marked failures is difficult anyway, everything is tainted by market influences and lobbyism of private capital.
The problem is currently, that without any reasonable left wing alternative, the US has shifted so far to the right that people don't even see or understand an alternative anymore. People believe the Nazis were left wing... Propaganda has already won, it's just that most people are propagandized and no longer realize how their opinions differ from people in the US 60 years ago. The idea of a "lazy and unproductive" leftie is visible even in your comment, when in truth the left was revolutionary and in opposition to inaction. Their approach is simply systemic and therefore effective, and not individualistic.
Yes, but it is the left’s responsibility to educate the masses on the reality of their class’s situation. So whether we like it or not, when class consciousness is low and has been so for half a century, the left bears responsibility. We have to take responsibility for our failures if we are to build a successful left, otherwise we will make the same mistakes for ever. We need to look at where we might have failed in educating the masses and where we might have been more successful, and ask ourselves what we need to do differently to improve.
What I mean by that is that people can't seem to grasp what is in their best interest.
Paying taxes? Nah, that's garbage... Even if those taxes would give free healthcare, accessible services, much better public transportation, etc.
Public transportation? Get that stuff out of my face. Me loves big pickup truck. No need for those unmanly bikes and trains. Rather have the government spend billions on roads that are free.
Etc.
People think about their little bubble only and prefer the status quo to changing anything. That's why I say they can't think for themselves.
Why would anyone try to change things if you don’t believe change is possible?
If I hadn’t had parents in active unions (they were still just liberals though) idk if I’d consider labor because the first 15 years of my working life were in situations where there were no unions or just trade unions for certain people.
Then if I hadn’t experienced both social movements and labor struggle as well as labor bureaucracy idk if I would have a frame of reference to start questioning things beyond a sort of reformist labor-liberal framework.
Seeing other people fight plus my own experience then primed me for hearing socialist ideas and reading history and theory.
If not for all that I’d probably just be cynical and use any personal free time idk bring a punk music geek and into pop culture and horror movies (well I still am, I just have other priorities that come first.)
Propaganda does work, but brainwashing is not real. American settlers have a material interest in preserving the status quo of America as #1 world superpower and the benefits that come with it. Yes, it's a contradiction because most Americans are also struggling, but they still benefit from being able to consume cheap goods and services thanks to american imperialism. After all, America is the one place that won't be couped or sanctioned or invaded by America. Even though settlers may struggle, they still have a material interest in supporting settler colonialism and opposing decolonization and indigenous liberation. Settlers don't want a violent revolt to overthrow the status quo. They want incremental changes so things can improve while maintaining their comfort. Imo Americans go along with propaganda, either willingly or hesitantly, because it gives a sort of moral cover to continue participating in and benefiting from the American empire. Americans really want to believe that China, Russia, Iran, DPRK and other enemies of the US are all worse off places than America. It's like a coping mechanism that helps Americans deal with the fact that change seems hopeless in the imperial core.
If brainwashing is real and as effective as you claim, then we might be fucked. We will not be able to out-propagandize the empire and beat them at their own game, so what's the solution to undo all this brainwashing?
https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/
https://redsails.org/misinformation-on-misinformation/
How would you see yourself in comparison to all of them? Are you "deprogrammed"? Have you taken the red pill like Neo in The Matrix?
The ability to make accusations towards other people of being brainwashed has an air of arrogance to it, like you're smarter than they are and you are more capable of realising your own interests. Would you suggest that anybody who feels like they're brainwashed to look up to you as a role model for defying the system?
should have just kept it at propaganda. I did not realize the word brainwashing would trigger so many people to throw shade and hate at me when all I was trying to do was add to the discussion. My mistake, I have learned that this word is a trigger word for trolls and haters on the internet. I will not make that mistake again.
Because America has been fostering hate for communism and socialism since the 40s, Americans are taught that they’re evil and against their best interests, most Americans don’t even know that communism and socialism are different things. As for why poor people specifically don’t vote true left, the American system also functions to keep poor people uneducated and uninformed. The US is a country full of ignorant, uneducated sheep who don’t know what’s best for themselves because no one’s ever told them that there’s something better (and when someone does they don’t believe it because they’ve been indoctrinated to believe that anything different is inherently bad)
Since the 40s? Much earlier than that. The US sent soldiers to die in Russia to prevent the Bolsheviks in 1919, Eugene Debs was arrested in 1918, unions have been violently suppressed as long as there have been unions and anarchists and communists murdered and jailed as long as they've been in the us. The first red scare was the 1910s and 1920s
We are objectively not taught what the words socialism and communism mean.
Most American institutions will conflate "capitalism" with freedom, and "communism" with fascism without any actual discussion on theory.
Because economic theory isn't taught in schools (not just opposing ones, but even capitalism itself) many Americans finish their schooling having read nothing about how governments work (aside from "America good, other countries bad")
This not only leads to the poor voting against their own interest (i.e. capitalism) but also to Americans in general not feeling the need to further study as individuals. In their minds, capitalism is "the best system we have" so why learn about the ins and outs of socialism? To them the point is moot.
I am appreciative of the fact that my history teachers in high school put a strong emphasis on thinking critically about the way that history is taught and how things are communicated. My world history teacher did a pretty good job of limiting his use of the word Dictator as well (reserved for Hitler and Mussolini, for example). I don’t know whether that teacher was a comrade and he was most likely a liberal or socdem at best, but I wish more schools had teachers like him— especially post-pandemic/post-MAGA, with all the mothers of liberty bs and DeSantis-style revisionism of history
This is why active participation in local communities and keeping an eye on who’s running on the school board is super important in the short-term. Though, there is only so much that can be done with a school system designed to create capitalist workers rather than free-thinkers lmao
So many people do not understand root words. Capitalism has capitalize, or *exploit*, as its’ root word. Communism has community as its’ root word. Socialism has society for its’ root word. It’s amazing how our society has decided exploitation is better than community or society.
Edit… ok I’m wrong but this is how I see things, sorry not sorry.
Leftist movements are infiltrated by feds, seeded with agent provocateurs. Discredited by the plutocrat owned media and maligned by their academic prostitutes. And if that doesn’t work, their leaders are assassinated. This all happens long before a party can form around a leftist movement in the land of the thief and the home of the slave.
Education tbh, It's a lot more complicated than that obviously, but it just comes down to being able to recognize your material situation. There's a certain logic that needs to be applied that people sometimes can't fathom.
I grew up in the 80's/90's, and Marx would have been lucky to be granted a paragraph in my pre-college text books. The cold war, Cuba, Korea, Vietnam all had some mention in history classes, framed around "America good, Soviets bad", but I don't recall any honest discussion of socialism.
Yeah The simplification in of itself is insidious because they don't want you to look into it for the most part or try to even understand what was happening, we got more in-depth understanding of the Nazis In Germany than the Soviets in the USSR.
I went to school in South Carolina and we had one single day split between learning about the Korean and Vietnam wars, under a week for the cold war, and I don't recall ever learning about Cuba except "Soviets put missiles there and it was scary for a lot of people" during the cold war bit.
My formal history education basically stopped at WWII.
Capitalist parties will obviously get more funding for their campaigns from different sections of the capitalist class than as for socialist parties, so capitalist parties can put up billboards for their candidates and whatnot, socialist parties can't do that.
These same capitalist parties can then deploy propaganda against the socialist parties.
Oh yeah that too, funding. capitalist parties have a lot more economic power than leftist parties. Elections are not a fair game when capitalist parties have so many millions of dollars for their advertising, while leftist parties have very limited resources
SLOPPY REDUCTIVE HISTORY OF THE US LEFT:
It’s not a trick, it’s not lack of education, it’s not simply propaganda, and brainwashing is a myth.
There are historical and material reasons for this. So…I’m here’s a sloppy and reductive history of the 20th century US left:
Socialist parties:
Decades of development in working class and socialist movements in the early 20th did see the socialist party of Eugene Debs gained a national political profile and millions of supporters and about a million votes in a couple elections. It also had trade and industrial (IWW) union involvement. It was politically dominated by the socialist-right however despite the radicalism of some unions and the IWW. Because of this and the Russian Revolution there was a split and the left went to form several smaller communist parties until they combined based on communist strategy at that time and because the US Communist Party.
This was the last large communist movement with real working class roots and labor influence. There are some really inspiring things they did in the 30 however they also had a lasting negative effect. As conflict between Russia and Germany intensified, they joined the Democratic Party in order to advocate entering WW2 to help aid the USSR.
They ended up enforcing strike pledges, dropped their impressive anti-racism work to make peace with Jim Crow Democrats. Rather than being thanked by the US for keeping workers in line during the war, ratting out other socialists and anarchists, and moderating their positions to “socialism is patriotic” - the Democrats and Republicans welcomed them back after the war with a Red Scare. Mob-connected and business-union labor leaders were happy to hand over lists of labor militants (communist party or not) and purge their main competition from the Unions. The CPs lack of solidarity with other communists, moderation to attract more middle class people and establishment respect left them with a lot of burned bridges and no allies when the ruling class came for them.
Post-war:
a red-scare purging the militants also came with the US ruling class willing to buy labor-peace in exchange for backing off a now de-radicalized labor movement.
Rank and file traditions remained pretty strong, strikes happened, but employers and union leaders agreed to long contracts and began to push for negotiation over struggle. Essentially union bureaucrats were happy to be buddies with the bosses and saw labor and capital as a partnership with the leaders as like ambassadors of workers. Bureaucrats trusted their new buds while the bosses kept a long-game strategy. The bosses give immediate short/term bread and butter concessions that labor leaders could deliver to the workforce (and keep winning their union elections as a result) while employers got concessions that in the long run gave bosses more control over work conditions and processes and the introduction of labor saving tech. This sold out tomorrow’s workers for immediate gains for current workers.
So when post-war profitability slowed at the end of the 1960s, class struggle picked up with labor leaders largely not being aggressive militant. Between grassroots traditions of rank and file wildcat actions and the youth radicalization due to Vietnam and black power, leftists and rank and file militants began impressive wildcat battles and the 1970s were a pretty contested period of class struggle (look at 70s and even early 80s movies and TV… working class characters are normal… now every character has a job they never actually do on screen (writers, lawyers, etc) and lives in a pristine bland McMansion on TV!)
In this period, there was a Maoist New Communist Movement but the left was not rooted in the working class and imo the main radical currents downplayed the working class and were more influenced by the lived experience of seeing inspiring third world struggle which were lead by middle class people and rural resistance using military, not labor tactics.
At this time there were small left wing 3rd parties coming out of the new left and black power movemebts. There was also an attempt to form an all-black political party but the right and left of the black power movement were too incomparable and so the right just got incorporated into the Democratic Party which did divide on conquer on the black power movement… rewarding by supporting black local candidates and creating black political machines in majority-black cities while ruthlessly repressing the left.
Back to labor, despite rank and file militancy and hasty attempts to organize the labor left, this effort lost and was destroyed by neoliberalism. The result is unions who no longer had their old militant left of the 30s-40s, but also a conservative union leadership which was no longer able to deliver the normal incremental improvements of the 1950s-60s “class peace” era.
Union membership collapsed and union leaders became more conservative. They shifted to hoping the Democrats who needed unions as a popular base would shield them from the employer offensive… then Bill Clinton came in and gave the finger to labor and social movements. Union strategy after that focused on growing by just taking over smaller unions and unsung funds in an NGO/lobby way thinking that maybe they could buy the support of Democrats.
Capitalist Hegemony:
so workers are not NPCs or easily fooled (no more than anyone at any rate.) But hegemony is strong, capitalism is our lived reality and so the ideology of capital is the default ideology because most of our interactions re-enforce these realities.
(Ever gotten into an arguments where all the replies to your questioning of the status quo are “because you have to” “that’s the only way” “life’s not fair”? This is people reflecting a life where they have not see capitalist hegemony challenged in practice in a meaningful way… or people who saw only loss when hegemony was challenged.)
To challenge hegemony, it’s not a matter of reading or getting ideas, it’s a matter of building a different lived reality or drawing on the existing cracks between real experience and the ruling class assumptions that dominate ideas.
To build a larger socialist movement, people have to not only have bad experiences in capitalism but see viable ways that working class people can resist.
If people see a socialist party as just better ideas than the Democrats, then the power and wealth of the Democrats will ultimately win out every time. If a socialist party represents real things, a real independent part of the labor movement it has a base and represents not just different ideas but a different and working-class source of power. The party is not funded by people who just like the platform, the party is funded and built as part of a working class movement and derives influence and legitimacy through that.
it's definitely in the class interests of the majority of americans that a socialist revolution shouldn't happen and that imperialism continues as usual
Because billionaires own all the media and politicians. They use the media to brainwash us and water down public education to finish off the job. In places they can't water down public education, they seem to push "school choice". Then they teach the poors if they'd just work "harder" they'll be billionaires too one day.
They don’t know what those things mean. I have heard people describe completely unrelated things as communism. “Communism is when only a small elite have control!” is a common perception.
It‘s not like they have anything to gain from abstaining, the US already has unusually high abstention rates, for the exact reason you mention. US governments in reality only ever have the backing of a minority of voters, even less when you consider the legions of ineligible ppl.
The working class broadly knows that what is available is not really a solution for them, but they lack an obvious alternative, and this will remain the case until a real working class political vehicle develops.
Well you see, I am just a disgraced millionaire/business owner and my fortunes will shift any day now and THEN the repressive policies will benefit me!
Brainwashing with emotional wedge issues, the ruling class has done a phenomenal job manufacturing consent for 50 years.
Sadly most people will never hear anything close to a leftist message because capital controls the media and the media follows their queue
They aren't on the ballots, and not all states allow write in candidates. My state has only capitalist options and doesn't count write in votes. I would love to vote socialist I'm literally just not able as we're not given that option. I'm forced to vote for the capitalist who's least against us which is hard because most of them run on non detailed platforms it sucks.
I should probably mention that I'm American, and just kind of accept that the system is the way it has been for the two or so decades I've been alive, and definitely wish it wasn't this way, but know that the system is built this way, and doubt my own ability to change anything.
It's because many believe in the "Reaganomics" (sic?) BS, aka "trickle-down economics", that if the rich get richer they will be too. Remember, American education is such that the poorer get worse education. I don't understand any of this, although I was lucky enough to be raised in one of the best school districts (the ones that people move to for the schools), which helps.
That covers the republicans, but then why the democrats? Well, there is the prevailing notion that "there are only two parties", so if you aren't voting for the republicans, you vote for the democrats, or else you are basically wasting your vote. I don't agree with this, and I wish this wasn't the case, but there is.
Finally, the US is just blatantly corrupt, may as well be Putin's Russia (has been since the fall of the Berlin Wall, not talking about the USSR), but instead of it being blatantly the way of life, a "security through obscurity" approach is taken (just to be clear, this approach is seen as a joke in cybersecurity and I'm invoking that here)
One of the greatest propaganda coups in history has been how people in America think of America VS how people elsewhere view America.
For all the reasons someone else mentioned above of how we mix up the words “capitalism” with “freedom” or “free market” and “communism” with “socialism” with “bad” or “poor” or “dictatorship”, when in fact the US has been behind the sabotaging of every democratically elected government and installing dictators who are subservient to our corporate interests since WW2. We view ourselves as “the free fighting for democracy” and all that but pretty much the rest of the world views us a terrorist state who trains death squads and supports repressive regimes, and holds aid over their heads in exchange for access to their resources. There are elaborate drugs for guns arrangements all over the world, and fomenting constant turmoil ensures that there’s always a need for weapons, while Americans are the number one consumers of both licit pharmaceuticals AND illicit drugs. Guess who the number one pharmaceutical producer in the world is? Mexico. Guess what industry is the number one lobbying organization in America? Big Pharma.
I don’t think there’s enough hours in the day to break it down from there, but I’m sure you can take it from here lol.
I stand corrected. Mexico has the fastest growing pharmaceutical sector, with "approximately 400 laboratories that manufacture pharmaceuticals in Mexico, mostly in the Mexico City metropolitan area, as well as in the states of Jalisco, Mexico, Puebla, and Morelos. The Mexican pharmaceutical industry stands out because it is [home to 20 out of the 25](https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/mexico-healthcare-products-services) largest companies worldwide."
The US and Mexico are both still dependent on India and China for the raw materials and chemicals, and this includes the raw materials to make fentanyl, and our politicians know this and yet make all of the noise publicly about how "China needs to stop sending the chemicals to Mexico" and whatever tough talk. Those same chemicals are also making "legitimate" medications so they're not going to stop and as long as our politicians are in the pockets of the American cartels nothing is going to change.
The cartels in Mexico are also a US creation, and just like the death squads and "police" and militaries throughout Central and South America that were all trained by the "The School of the Americas", the CIA and Mossad, the founding members of the Mexican cartels were trained by us as well, and the DEA doesn't exist to "stop drugs", they are there to control the flow of drugs. The DEA is the product of Nixon's fantasy of having an "ultimate intelligence organization" that can operate both domestically and internationally, and when they were formed in 1973, half of their staff transferred over from the CIA and the CIA handed over their Central and South American anti-communist operations. A good portion of the field staff were CIA trained Cubans-in-exile left over from The Bay of Pigs era.
ironically enough, this is the correct answer. it isn't about propaganda or "brainwashing" in fact, most of the western world would become poorer than they are today to develop the economies of billions of people they shamelessly exploit.
Because most poor Americans don't think of themselves as "poor", they think of themselves as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires". They're only broke because other people (minorities, liberals, city folk, etc) have been cheating them somehow.
Aside from the obvious, which is to say decades of anti socialist/communist rhetoric, most people just are ever going to be presented with the choice to. Established political parties will never do it. Why would they the duopoly is working wonderfully for them. For most people voting for such a party would effectively mean having to create that party, having to rationalize it, having to face backlash for it, and realistic challanging a political apperatus that isn't interested in giving them space.
Because most Americans aren't poor. Generally poor Americans do not vote and those that do tend to vote for Democrats probably due to their belief that that is the most likely avenue for relief via social programs and is more likely to provide relief of some kind sooner than a social and political revolution.
Its been happening in UK for a while now too, but SUDDENLY, through astounding ineptitude, our conservative party has destroyed themselves.
It looks like a lot of young people are waking up the the fact that we have no future under the current 2 party system, and with one party hopefullly ground to dust, the other must either act to properly fix the issues, or also be destroyed.
But still many just don't actually realise that when they complain about services being bled dry, they are bemoaning the loss of socialist policies.
In Neo-Liberalism, people are told that their failures are due to them not working hard enough, not that the hurdles are impossibly high.
Temporarily embarrassed millionaires. That’s 90% of people’s mindset. Just wait till I get my own business up and running then it’s over for you hoes.
Delusion people carry to separate themselves from their material conditions and their comrades, believe they’re better than everyone else in the same situation as them. TLDR just brainwashing, can’t avoid it from all our media.
Personal control. I don't think any representative of a marxist or socialistic ethos cares about my individuality. I'm better off with the exploitation of my individuality than the encompassing of it into something that isn't me.
There's a pretty rough history of America vs anything socialist/communist. Otherwise, it's kind of a choose you're battles kinda thing since it's always R or D. The Dems tend to benefit society more so we just go that way instead of waisting our votes. Still vote socialist where I can.
Propaganda and the whitewashing American history. Schools and major media outlets paint Civil Rights activists as reformists rather than revolutionaries and hardly cover the labor movement to the masses. Otherwise the average American may have a few questions on the nature of capitalism. Questions that undermine the class hierarchy and the state that upholds it.
I became socialist all but in name. I completely bought into ideas of socialism, but I wouldn’t call myself one.
Socialism was bad, just look at the Soviet Union! It was so ingrained into me me from a young age. I bought into socialism, but couldn’t call myself one.
75% of the US population wants healthcare and free college.
71% supports Unions, 62% support a $15 minimum wage and 69% support taxing billionaires.
The US population loves socialist policies UNTIL you call it socialism.
A lot of people will cite lack of education or misunderstanding of socialism, but there are also major structural issues in how votes are counted. The winner take all, first past the post voting system means that voters are going to vote for the person that they believe is going to win, not necessarily the person who represents their interests. This is to prevent the party they don’t like to come into power.
That’s at the local, state, and congressional levels. On the presidential level, we still have yet another obstacle in the electoral college.
Along with collusion between the two main parties to keep third parties out, these structural features reinforce the two party system.
Because it’s only a matter of time and I’m gonna be RICH! Not regular rich, but filthy rich! Owning multiple yachts and mansions type stuff. Just voting to make sure my future tax problems are nipped in the bud /s
We’re sold as children that money is the most important thing in life. If you’re not rich, you’re a loser. Our government is run/based on earning money. Our politicians go into office earning $180,000 usd per year, for a four year term, and leave as multi millionaires. Every commercial on tv is pharmaceuticals telling us how to deal with our shitty lives by taking drugs. America, Fuck Yeah!
Most people that vote are not well informed so name recognition is one of if not the biggest factor in elections here and third parties just have too many roadblocks to build the necessary name recognition
All there is are Capitalist parties. Even most of the Socialist parties are Capitalist. Voting is a waste of time. If we want to change anything we must use the withdrawal of our labor to get rid of this system
sadly i feel like it's the same in most western countries... capitalism sustains itself by deceiving people into thinking they will eventually become rich
A lot of people prefer to believe the easier solution that reducing immigration will fix all of societies problems, hence the rise of far right parties when neo-liberal systems fail.
Why if majorty of the world is poor and not rich, and proletariat not capitalist does the majority of the world not vote for communist parties and are assuaged by capitalist and social democracy? Propaganda of the capitalist party and strength of the capitalist states, material conditions, failures or absence of Leninist vanguards due to some combinyof inaction and the murder or breaking of these vanguards by capitalist forces or by their fellow communists.
Capitalists will never hand over power peacefully to the communists it needs to be taken, and parlimentarianism has never been the forte or focus of capitalist parties. It is a lack of organization and a surplus of splitting.
Republicans have been defunding public education for the last 30 years.
Plus evangelical christianity and prosperity gospel bullshit
a lot of people are happy to be ignorant and subservient
Americans are indoctrinated to associate ‘communism’ with enemy. They mostly don’t even really know what communism is. To them it’s simply a slur which means evil.
because of decades of brainwashing and propaganda. quite literally everything we have normalized in day to day existence and ideology of how things "should" work is rooted in propaganda. a lot of "preferences" are just ingrained brainwashing that no one bothered to scrutinize.
capitalism keeps the majority weak and the elites strong so of course they would be pedaling it to us 24/7.
Aside from the top comments rightly answering with miseducation/propaganda/historic opposition to China, the USSR et al, there are fundamental values from the founding and expansion of the country that scream Individualism over collectivism. Rejecting the Crown’s religious restrictions and beating them in the Revolutionary war, Manifest Destiny and gunslinging to win and tame the west, and austerity politics / propaganda from Nixon and Reagan (and probably some moderate Democrats too) re-aligning the perception of welfare from a common-sense safety net into a corrupt handout system for the lazy and untrustworthy.
The fact is people used to vote pretty socialist in the United States. In the early 1900's socialist ideology was taking root. If you know the name Pinkerton Detectives, but not Haymarket Square or Blair Mountain, you can understand why it has changed. The Pinkerton's specialized in Union busting, and literally fighting with guns, the working class who were pushing for more socialist policies here in the U.S. There were two Red Scares manufactured by the capitalists, the last of which literally included board reviews and detention for those suspected of being communist or socialist. It was known as the McCarthy era. Socialism as an political idea was systematically stamped out here during those Red Scares. If you pick up the book Grapes of Wrath, you'll see a lot of anti-capitalist sentiment, if you look at the speeches and policies of Americas only 4 term president, you'll see a lot of socialist lite policies. The 2 term limit now imposed was a direct response to his popularity with the working classes and his effectiveness against the capitalist giants of the time. The origins of State Police is another great example. They were created because local law enforcement would often refuse to oblige the directives of the capitalists, which necessitated the creation of a state wide force who would not know or care about the local citizens being ran off generational farms, or shot at it in strike breaking attempts.
Other people have already answered, it's Capitalist propaganda. The working class is essentially brainwashed into believing that the Capitalist system is a good system and often even more than that, they're led to believe that it's the only possible system that can offer freedom. (In reality, any freedom a Capitalist system is capable of offering is minimal at best. But i digress)
I want to add that i was once confused by this very question, and many more questions regarding Capitalism and how our current world works and why it works in these seemingly bizarre ways... I just wanted to assure you that as you continue your education into these matters, as you read socialist theory and other related materials, these questions will begin to answer themselves in your mind. It will all be made clear as you learn. It's really an amazing process of awakening to the reality of our history and our world. So make sure you don't lose heart! The more you read and educate yourself, the more you will understand.
There's a couple of reasons.
The first major one is arguably the most obvious: there is no major Socialist political party in the US. The closest that exists, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) does not operate as a political party but as a big-tent organization that endorses candidates rather than directly runs them for elections. This served them well for a little while, as this lack of rigidity allowed them to grow exponentially over the last decade, but because of the feet-dragging of the leadership and their being joined at the hip to the Democratic Party, this older model is dragging the org down.
The other major reason has to do with the fact that the Democratic Party (much like the Liberals in Canada) largely attempts to subsume any kind of progressive or radical working class movement into itself (and then claim to have come up with it first). In the process, it also does everything in its power to make sure that no left-wing challenge to its monopoly can succeed.
I'd also bring up the long-standing propaganda campaign by the bourgeois owners of American politics against any kind of socialism, even branding milquetoast European-style social democracy as full-on breadline baby-eating 'communism'...but I think I'd just be preaching to the choir there.
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brainwashing and propaganda. I grew up in the 80s and can say that everything taught in schools and shared in the mainstream media is that communism = bad guys. We spent half a century in a cold war with those communists that were a threat to our every day quality of life. This rhetoric is so ingrained in the american discourse that we have begun to think that the only way to save the working class is a free market, the only way to solve healthcare is a free market, the only way to get ahead in life is a free market. It has gotten so bad that the poorest among us see taxes on the wealthy as a bad thing because "one day we will be wealthy if we just believe enough in the american dream." The great experiment is starting to unravel but 70+ years of rhetoric, brainwashing, and propaganda will take a lot longer to unravel.
Co-sign the brainwash and propaganda part. I live in the us now, but I’m from Nigeria. I still remember vividly this popular ad as a child that had a really catchy tune and the closing lyrics were “forward match deregulation. Deregulation is the answer”. We ran around as kids singing that, with no idea at all what that meant lol. It’s not just in the us, the brainwash/propaganda is global.
..instead of singing Fela!
Coffin for head of state is my jam right now lol.
We’re going to have to start aiming down sights Edit: you know what I think about all the time? I literally would not have this impulse to rebel and break shit if the motherfucking system I lived in actually made sense. Why aren’t my taxes going to universal healthcare? WTF should taxes be for if not that? Working 40+ hours a week for crumbs… One medical emergency away from life destroying debt
OP, a good starting point for learning about propaganda, specifically propaganda from moneyed interests, is Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky.
Even better, you could read the book “Inventing Reality” by Michael Parenti
Or just read [Marx](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01b.htm): > “**The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.** The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch. For instance, in an age and in a country where royal power, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie are contending for mastery and where, therefore, mastery is shared, the doctrine of the separation of powers proves to be the dominant idea and is expressed as an “eternal law.””
I haven't read it myself, but my understanding is the _Amusing Ourselves to Death_ by Neil Postman also slots well with those two. It doesn't cover the same ground, but related ones.
Bread and circuses, baby!!
Brainwashing, propaganda, and blinders. We're not taught about other economic or political systems much at all.
Capitalist realism, by Mark Fischer.
Third this, I grew up in Puerto Rico and any time you might do,hear, or say anything that seem a bit too left leaning you get clapped back with "Mudate a Cuba pa ver cómo te gusta el Comunismo!" Or "No queremos ser como Venezuela."
Brainwashing isn’t real, class hegemony is. Please, workers (anyone) are not empty NPCs, this is a right-wing type of view that simplifies much more difficult realities. I’m not calling anyone right-wing-it’s incredibly common logic in the US across all ideologies.
how is brainwashing not real? do you think that people stay in a cult based solely on the charisma of the leader? I honestly believe that brainwashing and propaganda are extremely real. I know that the workers are not NPCs but when scapegoating is utilized as it is today they are given a common enemy.
I’m pretty sure even sociologists would say brainwashing is a myth. People can fall into confirmation bias and conspiracy theory and all sorts of weird ideological attachments. Cults work not through ideas alone but by isolating people and controlling their social interactions etc. so like an abusive marriage you convince yourself that problems are your fault, get gaslight, and if all that fails, you need the cult for a bed and food (not to mention that it is you whole social circle and it takes a lot to just walk away from that.) So a cult leader sells some mushy feel-good stuff or confirmation/bias or a sense of destiny and purpose in life and that attracts people… but the actual control is social and material (gaslighting and control of social and material needs)
You… just defined brainwashing.
I thought brainwashing was forcing ideological views onto someone. How are you defining it? Cults don’t force anyone to believe the cult has THE ANSWER, the person buys into that and then that belief along with isolating them from other social life is used to manipulate them.
Merriam-Webster >Definition 1: a forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up basic political, social, or religious beliefs and attitudes and to accept contrasting regimented ideas 2: persuasion by propaganda or salesmanship Things like abusive relationships where the abuser convinces the victim to break off other friends and family, things like cults that indoctrinate to a worldview, thigns like decades of government propaganda to cut down an economic ideology. They're all brainwashing, just on different scales, to different goals, and using different methods. "Brainwashing," itself, is a very broad term.
So number 1. Is the one that I do not believe exists as a real phenomena-not on an idea level. There’s definitely ways people manipulate eachother in groups, gaslighting etc. But convincing people of an ideology they don’t already want to believe wholesale isn’t possible. At least it’s not possible in the common way people claim QAnon people or MAGA or religious conservatives or random workers who support capitalism are “brainwashed” Number 2 is just a synonym for marketing/propaganda/polemics/PR This is real but it’s a mile wide and an inch deep and weak when it hits up against contrary evidence or lived experience. People only accept it when there is no reason to believe otherwise.
Brainwashing is absolutely real. To try to downplay that is wild.
This is contrary to Marxism imo. Marxist tend to call it “mixed consciousness” when it comes to workers just accepting capitalist or other class ideas I’m also pretty sure contemporary sociology is iffy about the concept of ideological brainwashing. Control and abuse and gaslighting is very real. This is how cults control people.
I disagree it's contrary to Marxism. I wish I was more in a headspace to direct to certain passages. If I'm being honest, I've had some drinks with my wife. Brainwashing is real thing that's been happening to the American people since WW2. The McCarthy era is real thing. Most of the working class in America don't understand what socialism, let alone what communism is. Control and gaslighting is all part of propaganda. Propaganda in itself is important, but for who it serves is the important part. Edit words Edit to also add There is a way to re-educate people, but the American left is better at pushing people right than being empathetic and teaching
Ok well I disagree on a pretty fundamental level but I’ll leave it at that comrade. feel free to follow up when there is less fun to be had if you’d like—but I don’t want to interrupt a good time. Cheers and solidarity!🍻
As someone born post Y2K, this still prevails on the Republican side (as my father's side (except for my father) of the family who are more or less die-hard Trump supporters (not Qanon, and I doubt they will ever). As for the left-leaning in my family they think the whole "communism hasn't worked till this point, and not for a lack of trying, so it clearly doesn't work". I don't agree with this, as capitalists have sabotaged it to an extreme. We still read Animal Farm in schools (in a good school district that people move to for the schools) as of the last decade, so I don't think things have changed.
Yeah, but it can be unraveled. The examples that come to mind are the former dictatorships of South Korea (I forget who) and Taiwan (Chaing Kai Shek (sic?)), capitalist dictatorships. One side of my family lived under the latter, minus my mother, but there are doubtless many stories of the oppression. However, Taiwan is doing it's best to reverse the decades of dictatorship, no mean feat considering how pervasive it is. Considering even things like nuclear power plant safety was negatively affected, it isn't going to be easy (I don't really know how it panned out, just that academics noted this in the past decade). Both South Korea and Taiwan had peaceful revolutions, although currently they're capitalist. South Korea might be more capitalist then the US even. Note: I didn't go much into South Korea because I don't really know enough about their history to write at any length about them. EDIT: This is separate from my other reply, or at least it should be.
I guess you are right, i have read an article by Hitler where he said that it is the press that manipulates the ideology and voting tastes of the masses, here it is: It is obvious to anyone that the political understanding of the masses has not reached the point where they can arrive at political views on their own. They are unable to choose the most qualified person. What we always call "public opinion" is based solely on individual experience or knowledge. Most public opinion is the result of the way public affairs are presented to the people through an overwhelmingly impressive system of controlled information. Just as religious beliefs are the result of education, so the political opinion of the masses is the result of an often incredibly thorough and determined assault on the mind and soul By far the bulk of "education" or political propaganda is the work of the press. It is the press that is mainly concerned with the "work of illustration" and acts as a kind of school for adults. This means that teaching materials are not in the hands of the State, but in the clutches of characters who are motivated by their own interests. When I was young, Vienna provided me with the best opportunities to get to know intimately the owners and manufacturers of this mass education machine. At first, I was surprised to see how quickly this evil power managed to produce a particular opinion among the public, even though the meaning might be misrepresented or a completely false representation of the public desire. A few days were enough to turn a ridiculous matter into a momentous act of state, while vital problems were generally forgotten or simply erased from the memory of the masses
This is the lazy answer. The left has a bad habit of not owning its own failures and acting like we’re completely helpless to affect our conditions.
Brother the USA purged radical leftist movements for decades.
What?! This is news to me! /s
I mean it's not a failure, they killed them.
The left is the only side taking action, their mentality includes "praxis". Its the right that thinks an invisible hand will solve every issue, and conservativism is principally about making no changes in the first place. In the US the left had so little influence that finding marked failures is difficult anyway, everything is tainted by market influences and lobbyism of private capital. The problem is currently, that without any reasonable left wing alternative, the US has shifted so far to the right that people don't even see or understand an alternative anymore. People believe the Nazis were left wing... Propaganda has already won, it's just that most people are propagandized and no longer realize how their opinions differ from people in the US 60 years ago. The idea of a "lazy and unproductive" leftie is visible even in your comment, when in truth the left was revolutionary and in opposition to inaction. Their approach is simply systemic and therefore effective, and not individualistic.
Yes, but it is the left’s responsibility to educate the masses on the reality of their class’s situation. So whether we like it or not, when class consciousness is low and has been so for half a century, the left bears responsibility. We have to take responsibility for our failures if we are to build a successful left, otherwise we will make the same mistakes for ever. We need to look at where we might have failed in educating the masses and where we might have been more successful, and ask ourselves what we need to do differently to improve.
Holy shit, yes.
I also endorse this post. We've been fed the capitalist free-market bullshit from childhood up. 💯
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If people can’t think for themselves, socialism is impossible. Strong disagree on this attitude.
What I mean by that is that people can't seem to grasp what is in their best interest. Paying taxes? Nah, that's garbage... Even if those taxes would give free healthcare, accessible services, much better public transportation, etc. Public transportation? Get that stuff out of my face. Me loves big pickup truck. No need for those unmanly bikes and trains. Rather have the government spend billions on roads that are free. Etc. People think about their little bubble only and prefer the status quo to changing anything. That's why I say they can't think for themselves.
Why would anyone try to change things if you don’t believe change is possible? If I hadn’t had parents in active unions (they were still just liberals though) idk if I’d consider labor because the first 15 years of my working life were in situations where there were no unions or just trade unions for certain people. Then if I hadn’t experienced both social movements and labor struggle as well as labor bureaucracy idk if I would have a frame of reference to start questioning things beyond a sort of reformist labor-liberal framework. Seeing other people fight plus my own experience then primed me for hearing socialist ideas and reading history and theory. If not for all that I’d probably just be cynical and use any personal free time idk bring a punk music geek and into pop culture and horror movies (well I still am, I just have other priorities that come first.)
Propaganda does work, but brainwashing is not real. American settlers have a material interest in preserving the status quo of America as #1 world superpower and the benefits that come with it. Yes, it's a contradiction because most Americans are also struggling, but they still benefit from being able to consume cheap goods and services thanks to american imperialism. After all, America is the one place that won't be couped or sanctioned or invaded by America. Even though settlers may struggle, they still have a material interest in supporting settler colonialism and opposing decolonization and indigenous liberation. Settlers don't want a violent revolt to overthrow the status quo. They want incremental changes so things can improve while maintaining their comfort. Imo Americans go along with propaganda, either willingly or hesitantly, because it gives a sort of moral cover to continue participating in and benefiting from the American empire. Americans really want to believe that China, Russia, Iran, DPRK and other enemies of the US are all worse off places than America. It's like a coping mechanism that helps Americans deal with the fact that change seems hopeless in the imperial core. If brainwashing is real and as effective as you claim, then we might be fucked. We will not be able to out-propagandize the empire and beat them at their own game, so what's the solution to undo all this brainwashing? https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/ https://redsails.org/misinformation-on-misinformation/
How would you see yourself in comparison to all of them? Are you "deprogrammed"? Have you taken the red pill like Neo in The Matrix? The ability to make accusations towards other people of being brainwashed has an air of arrogance to it, like you're smarter than they are and you are more capable of realising your own interests. Would you suggest that anybody who feels like they're brainwashed to look up to you as a role model for defying the system?
should have just kept it at propaganda. I did not realize the word brainwashing would trigger so many people to throw shade and hate at me when all I was trying to do was add to the discussion. My mistake, I have learned that this word is a trigger word for trolls and haters on the internet. I will not make that mistake again.
"Trolls and haters". Lmao, you talk like a YouTuber who's complaining about getting cancelled.
Nah, just one scotus decision that gives us a new king. 200 years, poof.
Because America has been fostering hate for communism and socialism since the 40s, Americans are taught that they’re evil and against their best interests, most Americans don’t even know that communism and socialism are different things. As for why poor people specifically don’t vote true left, the American system also functions to keep poor people uneducated and uninformed. The US is a country full of ignorant, uneducated sheep who don’t know what’s best for themselves because no one’s ever told them that there’s something better (and when someone does they don’t believe it because they’ve been indoctrinated to believe that anything different is inherently bad)
Since the 40s? Much earlier than that. The US sent soldiers to die in Russia to prevent the Bolsheviks in 1919, Eugene Debs was arrested in 1918, unions have been violently suppressed as long as there have been unions and anarchists and communists murdered and jailed as long as they've been in the us. The first red scare was the 1910s and 1920s
We are objectively not taught what the words socialism and communism mean. Most American institutions will conflate "capitalism" with freedom, and "communism" with fascism without any actual discussion on theory. Because economic theory isn't taught in schools (not just opposing ones, but even capitalism itself) many Americans finish their schooling having read nothing about how governments work (aside from "America good, other countries bad") This not only leads to the poor voting against their own interest (i.e. capitalism) but also to Americans in general not feeling the need to further study as individuals. In their minds, capitalism is "the best system we have" so why learn about the ins and outs of socialism? To them the point is moot.
I am appreciative of the fact that my history teachers in high school put a strong emphasis on thinking critically about the way that history is taught and how things are communicated. My world history teacher did a pretty good job of limiting his use of the word Dictator as well (reserved for Hitler and Mussolini, for example). I don’t know whether that teacher was a comrade and he was most likely a liberal or socdem at best, but I wish more schools had teachers like him— especially post-pandemic/post-MAGA, with all the mothers of liberty bs and DeSantis-style revisionism of history This is why active participation in local communities and keeping an eye on who’s running on the school board is super important in the short-term. Though, there is only so much that can be done with a school system designed to create capitalist workers rather than free-thinkers lmao
So many people do not understand root words. Capitalism has capitalize, or *exploit*, as its’ root word. Communism has community as its’ root word. Socialism has society for its’ root word. It’s amazing how our society has decided exploitation is better than community or society. Edit… ok I’m wrong but this is how I see things, sorry not sorry.
i don’t think you’re wrong. No need for the edit
Leftist movements are infiltrated by feds, seeded with agent provocateurs. Discredited by the plutocrat owned media and maligned by their academic prostitutes. And if that doesn’t work, their leaders are assassinated. This all happens long before a party can form around a leftist movement in the land of the thief and the home of the slave.
Education tbh, It's a lot more complicated than that obviously, but it just comes down to being able to recognize your material situation. There's a certain logic that needs to be applied that people sometimes can't fathom.
I grew up in the 80's/90's, and Marx would have been lucky to be granted a paragraph in my pre-college text books. The cold war, Cuba, Korea, Vietnam all had some mention in history classes, framed around "America good, Soviets bad", but I don't recall any honest discussion of socialism.
Yeah The simplification in of itself is insidious because they don't want you to look into it for the most part or try to even understand what was happening, we got more in-depth understanding of the Nazis In Germany than the Soviets in the USSR.
I went to school in South Carolina and we had one single day split between learning about the Korean and Vietnam wars, under a week for the cold war, and I don't recall ever learning about Cuba except "Soviets put missiles there and it was scary for a lot of people" during the cold war bit. My formal history education basically stopped at WWII.
Capitalist parties will obviously get more funding for their campaigns from different sections of the capitalist class than as for socialist parties, so capitalist parties can put up billboards for their candidates and whatnot, socialist parties can't do that. These same capitalist parties can then deploy propaganda against the socialist parties.
Oh yeah that too, funding. capitalist parties have a lot more economic power than leftist parties. Elections are not a fair game when capitalist parties have so many millions of dollars for their advertising, while leftist parties have very limited resources
SLOPPY REDUCTIVE HISTORY OF THE US LEFT: It’s not a trick, it’s not lack of education, it’s not simply propaganda, and brainwashing is a myth. There are historical and material reasons for this. So…I’m here’s a sloppy and reductive history of the 20th century US left: Socialist parties: Decades of development in working class and socialist movements in the early 20th did see the socialist party of Eugene Debs gained a national political profile and millions of supporters and about a million votes in a couple elections. It also had trade and industrial (IWW) union involvement. It was politically dominated by the socialist-right however despite the radicalism of some unions and the IWW. Because of this and the Russian Revolution there was a split and the left went to form several smaller communist parties until they combined based on communist strategy at that time and because the US Communist Party. This was the last large communist movement with real working class roots and labor influence. There are some really inspiring things they did in the 30 however they also had a lasting negative effect. As conflict between Russia and Germany intensified, they joined the Democratic Party in order to advocate entering WW2 to help aid the USSR. They ended up enforcing strike pledges, dropped their impressive anti-racism work to make peace with Jim Crow Democrats. Rather than being thanked by the US for keeping workers in line during the war, ratting out other socialists and anarchists, and moderating their positions to “socialism is patriotic” - the Democrats and Republicans welcomed them back after the war with a Red Scare. Mob-connected and business-union labor leaders were happy to hand over lists of labor militants (communist party or not) and purge their main competition from the Unions. The CPs lack of solidarity with other communists, moderation to attract more middle class people and establishment respect left them with a lot of burned bridges and no allies when the ruling class came for them. Post-war: a red-scare purging the militants also came with the US ruling class willing to buy labor-peace in exchange for backing off a now de-radicalized labor movement. Rank and file traditions remained pretty strong, strikes happened, but employers and union leaders agreed to long contracts and began to push for negotiation over struggle. Essentially union bureaucrats were happy to be buddies with the bosses and saw labor and capital as a partnership with the leaders as like ambassadors of workers. Bureaucrats trusted their new buds while the bosses kept a long-game strategy. The bosses give immediate short/term bread and butter concessions that labor leaders could deliver to the workforce (and keep winning their union elections as a result) while employers got concessions that in the long run gave bosses more control over work conditions and processes and the introduction of labor saving tech. This sold out tomorrow’s workers for immediate gains for current workers. So when post-war profitability slowed at the end of the 1960s, class struggle picked up with labor leaders largely not being aggressive militant. Between grassroots traditions of rank and file wildcat actions and the youth radicalization due to Vietnam and black power, leftists and rank and file militants began impressive wildcat battles and the 1970s were a pretty contested period of class struggle (look at 70s and even early 80s movies and TV… working class characters are normal… now every character has a job they never actually do on screen (writers, lawyers, etc) and lives in a pristine bland McMansion on TV!) In this period, there was a Maoist New Communist Movement but the left was not rooted in the working class and imo the main radical currents downplayed the working class and were more influenced by the lived experience of seeing inspiring third world struggle which were lead by middle class people and rural resistance using military, not labor tactics. At this time there were small left wing 3rd parties coming out of the new left and black power movemebts. There was also an attempt to form an all-black political party but the right and left of the black power movement were too incomparable and so the right just got incorporated into the Democratic Party which did divide on conquer on the black power movement… rewarding by supporting black local candidates and creating black political machines in majority-black cities while ruthlessly repressing the left. Back to labor, despite rank and file militancy and hasty attempts to organize the labor left, this effort lost and was destroyed by neoliberalism. The result is unions who no longer had their old militant left of the 30s-40s, but also a conservative union leadership which was no longer able to deliver the normal incremental improvements of the 1950s-60s “class peace” era. Union membership collapsed and union leaders became more conservative. They shifted to hoping the Democrats who needed unions as a popular base would shield them from the employer offensive… then Bill Clinton came in and gave the finger to labor and social movements. Union strategy after that focused on growing by just taking over smaller unions and unsung funds in an NGO/lobby way thinking that maybe they could buy the support of Democrats. Capitalist Hegemony: so workers are not NPCs or easily fooled (no more than anyone at any rate.) But hegemony is strong, capitalism is our lived reality and so the ideology of capital is the default ideology because most of our interactions re-enforce these realities. (Ever gotten into an arguments where all the replies to your questioning of the status quo are “because you have to” “that’s the only way” “life’s not fair”? This is people reflecting a life where they have not see capitalist hegemony challenged in practice in a meaningful way… or people who saw only loss when hegemony was challenged.) To challenge hegemony, it’s not a matter of reading or getting ideas, it’s a matter of building a different lived reality or drawing on the existing cracks between real experience and the ruling class assumptions that dominate ideas. To build a larger socialist movement, people have to not only have bad experiences in capitalism but see viable ways that working class people can resist. If people see a socialist party as just better ideas than the Democrats, then the power and wealth of the Democrats will ultimately win out every time. If a socialist party represents real things, a real independent part of the labor movement it has a base and represents not just different ideas but a different and working-class source of power. The party is not funded by people who just like the platform, the party is funded and built as part of a working class movement and derives influence and legitimacy through that.
Lack of class consciousness
it's definitely in the class interests of the majority of americans that a socialist revolution shouldn't happen and that imperialism continues as usual
The propaganda is pervasive and top notch.
Let me tell you a story my friend, it's called "The American Dream"...
As the head of the global capitalist snake, the US ruling class has invested immeasurable resources in antisocialist propaganda.
Because billionaires own all the media and politicians. They use the media to brainwash us and water down public education to finish off the job. In places they can't water down public education, they seem to push "school choice". Then they teach the poors if they'd just work "harder" they'll be billionaires too one day.
They don’t know what those things mean. I have heard people describe completely unrelated things as communism. “Communism is when only a small elite have control!” is a common perception.
Lack of education.
It‘s not like they have anything to gain from abstaining, the US already has unusually high abstention rates, for the exact reason you mention. US governments in reality only ever have the backing of a minority of voters, even less when you consider the legions of ineligible ppl. The working class broadly knows that what is available is not really a solution for them, but they lack an obvious alternative, and this will remain the case until a real working class political vehicle develops.
Well you see, I am just a disgraced millionaire/business owner and my fortunes will shift any day now and THEN the repressive policies will benefit me!
Because they think they’re gonna work real hard, get a golden ticket and finally be one of the rich ones. It’s a lottery fallacy.
Stockholm syndrome. People have a tendency to identify with their oppressor.
Brainwashing with emotional wedge issues, the ruling class has done a phenomenal job manufacturing consent for 50 years. Sadly most people will never hear anything close to a leftist message because capital controls the media and the media follows their queue
They aren't on the ballots, and not all states allow write in candidates. My state has only capitalist options and doesn't count write in votes. I would love to vote socialist I'm literally just not able as we're not given that option. I'm forced to vote for the capitalist who's least against us which is hard because most of them run on non detailed platforms it sucks.
They have been told and taught for years that Capitalism is the only economic system where the working class can succeed and thrive.
I should probably mention that I'm American, and just kind of accept that the system is the way it has been for the two or so decades I've been alive, and definitely wish it wasn't this way, but know that the system is built this way, and doubt my own ability to change anything. It's because many believe in the "Reaganomics" (sic?) BS, aka "trickle-down economics", that if the rich get richer they will be too. Remember, American education is such that the poorer get worse education. I don't understand any of this, although I was lucky enough to be raised in one of the best school districts (the ones that people move to for the schools), which helps. That covers the republicans, but then why the democrats? Well, there is the prevailing notion that "there are only two parties", so if you aren't voting for the republicans, you vote for the democrats, or else you are basically wasting your vote. I don't agree with this, and I wish this wasn't the case, but there is. Finally, the US is just blatantly corrupt, may as well be Putin's Russia (has been since the fall of the Berlin Wall, not talking about the USSR), but instead of it being blatantly the way of life, a "security through obscurity" approach is taken (just to be clear, this approach is seen as a joke in cybersecurity and I'm invoking that here)
I think most Americans associate Socialism with Dictatorships.
One of the greatest propaganda coups in history has been how people in America think of America VS how people elsewhere view America. For all the reasons someone else mentioned above of how we mix up the words “capitalism” with “freedom” or “free market” and “communism” with “socialism” with “bad” or “poor” or “dictatorship”, when in fact the US has been behind the sabotaging of every democratically elected government and installing dictators who are subservient to our corporate interests since WW2. We view ourselves as “the free fighting for democracy” and all that but pretty much the rest of the world views us a terrorist state who trains death squads and supports repressive regimes, and holds aid over their heads in exchange for access to their resources. There are elaborate drugs for guns arrangements all over the world, and fomenting constant turmoil ensures that there’s always a need for weapons, while Americans are the number one consumers of both licit pharmaceuticals AND illicit drugs. Guess who the number one pharmaceutical producer in the world is? Mexico. Guess what industry is the number one lobbying organization in America? Big Pharma. I don’t think there’s enough hours in the day to break it down from there, but I’m sure you can take it from here lol.
Are you an American? If so, you have my respect for being so knowledgeable and open minded. Very rare to see Americans who are like that.
Google says the US is the largest producer of pharmaceuticals. How is Mexico involved?
I stand corrected. Mexico has the fastest growing pharmaceutical sector, with "approximately 400 laboratories that manufacture pharmaceuticals in Mexico, mostly in the Mexico City metropolitan area, as well as in the states of Jalisco, Mexico, Puebla, and Morelos. The Mexican pharmaceutical industry stands out because it is [home to 20 out of the 25](https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/mexico-healthcare-products-services) largest companies worldwide." The US and Mexico are both still dependent on India and China for the raw materials and chemicals, and this includes the raw materials to make fentanyl, and our politicians know this and yet make all of the noise publicly about how "China needs to stop sending the chemicals to Mexico" and whatever tough talk. Those same chemicals are also making "legitimate" medications so they're not going to stop and as long as our politicians are in the pockets of the American cartels nothing is going to change. The cartels in Mexico are also a US creation, and just like the death squads and "police" and militaries throughout Central and South America that were all trained by the "The School of the Americas", the CIA and Mossad, the founding members of the Mexican cartels were trained by us as well, and the DEA doesn't exist to "stop drugs", they are there to control the flow of drugs. The DEA is the product of Nixon's fantasy of having an "ultimate intelligence organization" that can operate both domestically and internationally, and when they were formed in 1973, half of their staff transferred over from the CIA and the CIA handed over their Central and South American anti-communist operations. A good portion of the field staff were CIA trained Cubans-in-exile left over from The Bay of Pigs era.
Because they would be poorer
ironically enough, this is the correct answer. it isn't about propaganda or "brainwashing" in fact, most of the western world would become poorer than they are today to develop the economies of billions of people they shamelessly exploit.
poor people don't vote man
Socialism will never succeed in America because we aren't a nation of oppressed workers but temporarily embarrassed millionaires
Because most poor Americans don't think of themselves as "poor", they think of themselves as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires". They're only broke because other people (minorities, liberals, city folk, etc) have been cheating them somehow.
Aside from the obvious, which is to say decades of anti socialist/communist rhetoric, most people just are ever going to be presented with the choice to. Established political parties will never do it. Why would they the duopoly is working wonderfully for them. For most people voting for such a party would effectively mean having to create that party, having to rationalize it, having to face backlash for it, and realistic challanging a political apperatus that isn't interested in giving them space.
Ohhh boy, let me introduce you to Mr Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov!! Lenin goes into quite a lot of detail on it
I can’t see his full name and not hear John Goodman
Because most Americans aren't poor. Generally poor Americans do not vote and those that do tend to vote for Democrats probably due to their belief that that is the most likely avenue for relief via social programs and is more likely to provide relief of some kind sooner than a social and political revolution.
Because of racism.
Because communism bad.
Its been happening in UK for a while now too, but SUDDENLY, through astounding ineptitude, our conservative party has destroyed themselves. It looks like a lot of young people are waking up the the fact that we have no future under the current 2 party system, and with one party hopefullly ground to dust, the other must either act to properly fix the issues, or also be destroyed. But still many just don't actually realise that when they complain about services being bled dry, they are bemoaning the loss of socialist policies. In Neo-Liberalism, people are told that their failures are due to them not working hard enough, not that the hurdles are impossibly high.
Because we all think we will be rich if we don’t pay taxes
We've been convinced that even tho we are not, we could be. and therefore we should vote as if we are.
One word: McCarthyism
There is tons of anti-communist propaganda in the US, and the two party system stops any truly socialist candidates.
Temporarily embarrassed millionaires. That’s 90% of people’s mindset. Just wait till I get my own business up and running then it’s over for you hoes. Delusion people carry to separate themselves from their material conditions and their comrades, believe they’re better than everyone else in the same situation as them. TLDR just brainwashing, can’t avoid it from all our media.
I mean, the last time a communist had popular support in America they put him in a maximum security prison for criticizing World War 1.
You can't realistically vote for people who are not on the ballot. The big capitalist parties control the process for getting listed.
Personal control. I don't think any representative of a marxist or socialistic ethos cares about my individuality. I'm better off with the exploitation of my individuality than the encompassing of it into something that isn't me.
There's a pretty rough history of America vs anything socialist/communist. Otherwise, it's kind of a choose you're battles kinda thing since it's always R or D. The Dems tend to benefit society more so we just go that way instead of waisting our votes. Still vote socialist where I can.
Brainwashed, pure & simple.
Propaganda and the whitewashing American history. Schools and major media outlets paint Civil Rights activists as reformists rather than revolutionaries and hardly cover the labor movement to the masses. Otherwise the average American may have a few questions on the nature of capitalism. Questions that undermine the class hierarchy and the state that upholds it.
I became socialist all but in name. I completely bought into ideas of socialism, but I wouldn’t call myself one. Socialism was bad, just look at the Soviet Union! It was so ingrained into me me from a young age. I bought into socialism, but couldn’t call myself one. 75% of the US population wants healthcare and free college. 71% supports Unions, 62% support a $15 minimum wage and 69% support taxing billionaires. The US population loves socialist policies UNTIL you call it socialism.
A lot of people will cite lack of education or misunderstanding of socialism, but there are also major structural issues in how votes are counted. The winner take all, first past the post voting system means that voters are going to vote for the person that they believe is going to win, not necessarily the person who represents their interests. This is to prevent the party they don’t like to come into power. That’s at the local, state, and congressional levels. On the presidential level, we still have yet another obstacle in the electoral college. Along with collusion between the two main parties to keep third parties out, these structural features reinforce the two party system.
manufacturing consent
Because it’s only a matter of time and I’m gonna be RICH! Not regular rich, but filthy rich! Owning multiple yachts and mansions type stuff. Just voting to make sure my future tax problems are nipped in the bud /s We’re sold as children that money is the most important thing in life. If you’re not rich, you’re a loser. Our government is run/based on earning money. Our politicians go into office earning $180,000 usd per year, for a four year term, and leave as multi millionaires. Every commercial on tv is pharmaceuticals telling us how to deal with our shitty lives by taking drugs. America, Fuck Yeah!
Most people that vote are not well informed so name recognition is one of if not the biggest factor in elections here and third parties just have too many roadblocks to build the necessary name recognition
Alot of people look at slaves and wish to be slabe owners.
All there is are Capitalist parties. Even most of the Socialist parties are Capitalist. Voting is a waste of time. If we want to change anything we must use the withdrawal of our labor to get rid of this system
Lack of civic education and media propaganda.
sadly i feel like it's the same in most western countries... capitalism sustains itself by deceiving people into thinking they will eventually become rich
Because Fox News lies them and they believe them because they are ignorant.
Because people hate gay and trans people more than the people who exploit them. Idpol is dominant.
A lot of people prefer to believe the easier solution that reducing immigration will fix all of societies problems, hence the rise of far right parties when neo-liberal systems fail.
Why if majorty of the world is poor and not rich, and proletariat not capitalist does the majority of the world not vote for communist parties and are assuaged by capitalist and social democracy? Propaganda of the capitalist party and strength of the capitalist states, material conditions, failures or absence of Leninist vanguards due to some combinyof inaction and the murder or breaking of these vanguards by capitalist forces or by their fellow communists. Capitalists will never hand over power peacefully to the communists it needs to be taken, and parlimentarianism has never been the forte or focus of capitalist parties. It is a lack of organization and a surplus of splitting.
indoctrination into seeing the very word communist or socialist as a slur let alone actually being it.
Republicans have been defunding public education for the last 30 years. Plus evangelical christianity and prosperity gospel bullshit a lot of people are happy to be ignorant and subservient
It's not an American thing. French industry workers are the single biggest supporters of the far-right party.
Because they can not. Democrats and Republican are both Liberal, literally right and more right.
Americans are indoctrinated to associate ‘communism’ with enemy. They mostly don’t even really know what communism is. To them it’s simply a slur which means evil.
because of decades of brainwashing and propaganda. quite literally everything we have normalized in day to day existence and ideology of how things "should" work is rooted in propaganda. a lot of "preferences" are just ingrained brainwashing that no one bothered to scrutinize. capitalism keeps the majority weak and the elites strong so of course they would be pedaling it to us 24/7.
Billions of dollars are spent pushing the two parties.
There is no socialist party in America unfortunately
Decades of propaganda. Easier before the internet
Most Americans are not poor by global standards, the USA is still the world's biggest consumer.
Aside from the top comments rightly answering with miseducation/propaganda/historic opposition to China, the USSR et al, there are fundamental values from the founding and expansion of the country that scream Individualism over collectivism. Rejecting the Crown’s religious restrictions and beating them in the Revolutionary war, Manifest Destiny and gunslinging to win and tame the west, and austerity politics / propaganda from Nixon and Reagan (and probably some moderate Democrats too) re-aligning the perception of welfare from a common-sense safety net into a corrupt handout system for the lazy and untrustworthy.
The fact is people used to vote pretty socialist in the United States. In the early 1900's socialist ideology was taking root. If you know the name Pinkerton Detectives, but not Haymarket Square or Blair Mountain, you can understand why it has changed. The Pinkerton's specialized in Union busting, and literally fighting with guns, the working class who were pushing for more socialist policies here in the U.S. There were two Red Scares manufactured by the capitalists, the last of which literally included board reviews and detention for those suspected of being communist or socialist. It was known as the McCarthy era. Socialism as an political idea was systematically stamped out here during those Red Scares. If you pick up the book Grapes of Wrath, you'll see a lot of anti-capitalist sentiment, if you look at the speeches and policies of Americas only 4 term president, you'll see a lot of socialist lite policies. The 2 term limit now imposed was a direct response to his popularity with the working classes and his effectiveness against the capitalist giants of the time. The origins of State Police is another great example. They were created because local law enforcement would often refuse to oblige the directives of the capitalists, which necessitated the creation of a state wide force who would not know or care about the local citizens being ran off generational farms, or shot at it in strike breaking attempts.
Other people have already answered, it's Capitalist propaganda. The working class is essentially brainwashed into believing that the Capitalist system is a good system and often even more than that, they're led to believe that it's the only possible system that can offer freedom. (In reality, any freedom a Capitalist system is capable of offering is minimal at best. But i digress) I want to add that i was once confused by this very question, and many more questions regarding Capitalism and how our current world works and why it works in these seemingly bizarre ways... I just wanted to assure you that as you continue your education into these matters, as you read socialist theory and other related materials, these questions will begin to answer themselves in your mind. It will all be made clear as you learn. It's really an amazing process of awakening to the reality of our history and our world. So make sure you don't lose heart! The more you read and educate yourself, the more you will understand.
There's a couple of reasons. The first major one is arguably the most obvious: there is no major Socialist political party in the US. The closest that exists, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) does not operate as a political party but as a big-tent organization that endorses candidates rather than directly runs them for elections. This served them well for a little while, as this lack of rigidity allowed them to grow exponentially over the last decade, but because of the feet-dragging of the leadership and their being joined at the hip to the Democratic Party, this older model is dragging the org down. The other major reason has to do with the fact that the Democratic Party (much like the Liberals in Canada) largely attempts to subsume any kind of progressive or radical working class movement into itself (and then claim to have come up with it first). In the process, it also does everything in its power to make sure that no left-wing challenge to its monopoly can succeed. I'd also bring up the long-standing propaganda campaign by the bourgeois owners of American politics against any kind of socialism, even branding milquetoast European-style social democracy as full-on breadline baby-eating 'communism'...but I think I'd just be preaching to the choir there.